Columbia will roll out Maestro's ASP hotel software system at the luxury Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma, California and the Talaris Conference Center in Seattle in 1Q '09. Columbia installed Maestro PMS and Sales and Catering in the Cedarbrook Conference Center, near Seattle, Washington in 2004 and plans to bring five more properties online in the future.

"Columbia selected Maestro after a comprehensive needs analysis that demonstrated the Maestro ASP Multi-Property Suite was the most flexible and effective system to manage operations centrally for all our properties," says Columbia's corporate director of technology, Brock Laing. "Maestro's in-depth ASP functionality is strong enough for our largest resorts, and flexible enough to support our smaller properties. Maestro's excellent Diamond Plus Support was an important part of our decision as was the NORTHWIND disaster recovery process." Prior to the Maestro standardization, Columbia was operating seven different PMSes across its portfolio.

Laing says the advantages Columbia receives from Maestro include:

Centralized management controls and oversight with all properties in one database

Centralized reservation management for greater occupancy from all channels

A single system enables standardized training and reports to optimize each property's performance.

Secure system protect guest data
"Maestro has done a great job at our Cedarbrook Conference Center property since we installed it in 2004," says Laing. "NORTHWIND's Diamond Plus Service and training are excellent, they have a track record of responding quickly to operational issues and we have been very happy with the evolution of the product. Based on our personal experience, Maestro disaster recovery has worked well and is simple to manage as it is based on SQL technology that we have deployed for our Corporate accounting system. Maestro's data protection and encryption have proven itself, even for some of our financial clients whose government regulated Security policies are much more stringent than one would normally see in the hospitality industry." Laing also notes that revenue management is important for Columbia and that Maestro's yield management system is a straightforward, effective tool that saves on labor costs while optimizing revenue for its owners.